


The Surprising Romantic Properties of the Arkangel Cocktail

by LienidQueen



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Absolutely fluffy, Bartender!Clarke, F/M, Jasper is a mad scientist of a bartender, background Jasper/Maya, background monty/miller, oh well, pure fluff, truly I'm not sure there's a plot., who's surprised
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 20:59:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13772436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LienidQueen/pseuds/LienidQueen
Summary: Jasper Jordan invented the Arkangel cocktail on a Thursday night in June nearly a year ago. He was one of the regular bartenders (though he prefers mixologist) at Dropship, a funkadelic speakeasy on the northeast side of DC, and was trying to impress a girl. This was pretty par for the course for Jasper, as he would often remix drinks for pretty women during slow nights. Usually this backfired horribly. This time, it worked.--Clarke, a bartender at Dropship, meets Bellamy one night after refusing to tell him the recipe to the bar's secret cocktail. He vowed to learn it. This is their story.





	The Surprising Romantic Properties of the Arkangel Cocktail

**Author's Note:**

> A strange plot idea based on my high school English teacher's true story of how he met his wife.
> 
> Still going strong with More Heart, Less Attack. Just needed a night off.

Jasper Jordan invented the Arkangel cocktail on a Thursday night in June nearly a year ago. He was one of the regular bartenders (though he prefers mixologist) at Dropship, a funkadelic speakeasy on the northeast side of DC, and was trying to impress a girl. This was pretty par for the course for Jasper, as he would often remix drinks for pretty women during slow nights. Usually this backfired horribly. This time, it worked.

He had riffed on the Amaretto Sour, the favorite drink of Maya Vie, then just a new customer. But he riffed so far that the drink barely resembled its original form, save for the almond liqueur and lemon juice. He presented the concoction to her with three maraschino cherries speared on a longsword cocktail pick and a flash of a lighter. When Maya asked what it was called, Jasper named it Arkangel on her cocktail napkin, misspelling it and enigmatically charming her. Raven and Clarke, two other bartenders on shift that evening, stood at a safe distance to watch this woman imbibe the disastrous beverage and promptly spit it in Jasper’s face, as often was the case. To their surprise, Maya, delighted, had proclaimed it spectacular and ordered three more before the end of the night.

By the end of the weekend, more people asked for Arkangels than martinis and on Monday Indra called for a staff meeting about it. If the hype was to continue with Jasper’s surprising success, no one could give the recipe to anyone. The entire staff, all twelve full-timers, five part-timers, and three stopgaps agreed. Ingredients were put in unmarked bottles. And while it went on the chalkboard menu above the soldier rows of alcohols, the Arkangel’s only description was “as righteous as heaven itself”.

People ordered it like mad.

* * *

On this particular Friday night, Clarke was not in the mood. Jasper had the flu and called out, and Monty was working the DJ booth this evening, which meant Clarke, Raven, and John Murphy were handling the bar on their own. On a Friday night. In downtown Washington DC.

She pressed her cocktail shakers on the rinsing spout to clean them and scanned the bar for her next available customer, praying they didn’t order an Arkangel. Clarke liked the drink enough, but it was hard enough to keep up with Friday night demand without having to covertly mix its contents under the bar or behind her back. She just didn’t have time for that.

“Hottie and squad just rolled in,” Raven Reyes told Clarke as she passed behind her carrying a crate of prepped sour mix bottles. She was possibly Clarke’s best friend on the planet and co-conspirator in all things. Sometimes this was in plotting retribution against their mutual ex-boyfriend or creating the best brunch crawl in the city. Lately this just meant trying to get Clarke dates with hot customers. It was a mixed bag.

Clarke rolled her eyes, but looked anyway. Two tall men in crisp suits just entered with a striking woman in a slinky dress. They looked around, and proceeded towards a table.

“Look at their suits, Rae,” Clarke told her as Raven passed back. “Ten bucks they’re finance boys.”

“Ha! Twenty bucks they’re from the Hill,” Raven raised her.

“Ugh, the Hill? Political fuckbois are the worst.”

“Don’t be so prejudiced. They’re connected,” Raven nudged her, grinning. “Maybe you could actually go to one of those non-profit galas instead of just planning them.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clark sing-songed.

"We actually prefer the term Political Fuck-Men,” a deep voice from behind her said, and she whirled around to see one of the men standing right in front of her at the bar, smirking.

“What? I uh—“ Clarke had lost all of her bravado when faced with the specimen before her. From a distance he had seemed crisp and clinical, but now that he was closer she noticed the colony of freckles on his cheeks and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“Or Political advisors, but that’s really the sort of title you only bring out for resumes and Linkedin profiles, right?” the man keep speaking.

“You’re in politics?” Clarke asked, the only complete sentence her brain was forming at the moment.

“Yeah. I work for Senator Kane.” He must have interpreted her expression for ignorance because he continued “Of Virginia?”

“I know who Senator Kane is,” Clarke responded, finally grabbing hold of her faculties.

“A-ha! Twenty bucks!” Raven yelled from the other end of the bar, clearly monitoring the conversation from a distance.

“Take it from my tips,” Clarke shot back, then turned back to Bellamy. “I live in Virginia. I know who my senator is.”

“Okay,” Bellamy raised his hands in defeat. “Point taken.”

“What’ll it be?”

“I’ll take a whiskey sour, a gin and tonic, and my sister will have an Arkangel, whatever that is.”

“It’s a good drink,” Clarke protested, not quite sure why she was standing up for the cocktail.

“I’m sure it is. But I’m not a sweet drink person,” Bellamy answered as she started the gin and tonics.

“How very heteronormative of you, eschewing feminine-percieved traits to confirm your masculine identity,” Clarke rattled off. She had experienced this conversation no less than four times already this week. Because it was called the Arkangel, the fuckbois of DC had decided that it was not their cup of tea.

“It’s not about the gender divide, jesus,” Bellamy snorted. “I just like sours. Sue me.”

“Then you would be surprised to know that it’s based on a sour,” Clarke told him. As Murphy passed her in pursuit of a lime bucket, he smacked the back of her head.

“Dumbass,” Murphy grumbled. “We all signed that stupid pact for Indra.”

“You told Emori,” Clarke contended. Murphy had lasted all of two weeks of the pact before telling his girlfriend the recipe. Now Emori made arguably one of the better Arkangels of the pack.

“And he’s the same thing as Emori?” Murphy asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Clarke blushed.

“Is the recipe a secret or something? If you tell me, you’d have to kill me?”

“Something like that.”

Clarke passed him the gin and tonic, and started preparations for the Arkangel. “You’re going to have to talk to my back for a couple minutes.”

“It’s that secret?” Bellamy asked. Clarke only turned with the shaker, adding this and that according to the recipe.

“Yep.”

They both went silent for a moment as Clarke worked. She was the first to break the silence.

“What do you do for Senator Kane?”

“I’m his Deputy Chief of Staff,” Bellamy told her.

“Are you in love with your secretary?” Clarke joked starting to shake the drink. From his lack of response, she assumed he didn’t get the reference. She tried again. “Aren’t you going to ask me if I voted for him?”

Bellamy laughed. “Oh no. I learned my lesson. I never ask pretty women if they voted for the Senator. It rarely goes well for me.”

Clarke spun around. “Excuse me?”

“Clarke, you’re good looking,” Bellamy insisted. “If people don’t recognize that they should be declared legally blind. I wasn’t hitting on you, I was just stating observations.”

“Okay then,” Clarke replied, pouring out two Arkangels, topping them with the characteristic longsword picks and hitting them with her lighter.

“This is two Arkangels. I only ordered one,” Bellamy asserted.

“Try it,” Clarke challenged. “If you hate it, I’ll make you a whiskey sour.”

Bellamy shrugged and took a sip. There was a deafening pause while he pondered it. After a moment he responded.

“Yeah, you’re right. It’s good. Thanks.”

Clarke closed his tab and he walked away with all three drinks, a skill not easily achieved for a novice. Only when Raven sauntered over did she look at the receipt.

“Twenty-five percent tip? ‘Hey big spender’,” Raven began to sing, swaying her hips.

“Shut up.” She turned over the check. He had written his name, “Bellamy”, and his phone number on the back. “Seriously?”

Raven stopped her swaggering dance. “What? Guys hit on you all the time.”

“He knows these receipts get turned in to Indra, right?”

“Evidently not, or I’m sure he wouldn’t put his number on it. He doesn’t seem like her type.”

Clarke snorted. “Rae.”

“What? He was cute. He was flirting with you—“

“If you’d call that flirting—“ Clarke interjected.

“—And you are never going to see him again. What does it matter?”

Clarke thought for a moment.

“You’re right,” she told Raven, who raised her hands as if she was thanking the heavens. “He probably won’t even be back.”

* * *

In fact, Clarke was incredibly wrong on that front. He reappeared on Wednesday night the next week with the same broad-chested man as before. Clarke had been in the back unpacking a case of vodka when Harper beelined in.

“Clarke you will never guess who is here,” she exclaimed.

Clarke’s first thought was that it was Finn, Raven and Clarke’s mutual ex-boyfriend, whose shenanigans they discovered in this very bar two years ago. He hadn’t shown his face in the establishment since, so it would be a surprise to see him tonight.

“Who?” Clarke played along.

“That political guy you met on Friday. Raven said you knew him,” Harper elaborated.

“Shit,” she responded, landing on one of the piles of boxes in the back room. “Right now?”

“Yeah. He asked about you. Well, he didn’t know your name, but you’re the only opinionated blonde who works here,” babbled Harper.

“Okay.”

"You should go see him!”

“Why?”

“Because!” Harper insisted, as if this settled the matter.

“Fine.” Clarke shuffled towards the door, stopping for an instant at the mirror on the wall to check her hair. It wasn’t too terrible. One might even say it was a good hair day for Clarke in that her hair didn’t look like it was styled by barbarians. But her threshold was low.

Clarke passed through the door and there he was. Bellamy and his friend were leaning against the bartop, sleeves rolled up identically and ties haphazardly loosened. She approached them.

“What can I get you?” she asked, and Bellamy’s face lit with recognition.

“Two Arkangels,” he told her. “My sister’s obsessed with them.”

“Is she here?”

“No, but she told me all she wants for her birthday is to have them at her party, so I’ve come for reconnaissance.”

Clarke snorted. “You know I’m just going to turn my back, right?”

“Eventually you’ll slip up,” Bellamy teased.

“You don’t know Clarke,” Raven insisted, inserting herself in the conversation. “That girl is fueled by spite and pop tarts.”

“Good to know,” he grinned.

Clarke turned around and presented Bellamy and his friend with two Arkangels, flaming and all.

“So you’re here for your sister. What’s his excuse?” she asked, motioning to his drinking companion.

“Miller?” Bellamy asked. “I’ll tell you a secret.” He leaned in, almost comically. Clarke mirrored him. “He’s got a massive thing for your DJ.”

She laughed. A big one, full of pitch modulation and percussion. “I’ll tell Monty. He’ll be thrilled.” Clarke got Miller’s attention. “Monty DJs on Fridays and Sundays. He bartends on Thursdays and Saturdays.”

Miller mumbled a response.

“I’ll bet the next time we come in will be a Thursday or a Saturday,” Bellamy informed her.

“See you,” she answered, being flagged down by another customer.

* * *

The fourth time Bellamy came in while she was on shift, it was a Saturday night and she had been called in to pinch hit because of Homecoming, or something moronic. Honestly it was pretty easy since bros kept ordering shots and beers, the simplest of the bartending skillset. Of course, Bellamy rolled up with Miller in tow and ordered two Arkangels, so her simple mojo was shot. She and Bellamy watched as Miller unsuccessfully hit on Monty, much to his disgrace. Bellamy laughed so hard he howled and Clarke managed a chuckle in between serving other customers.

The seventh time Bellamy came in he started calling her “princess” after the pink wire crown on her head. Clarke swore high and low that a bachelorette party had bequeathed it to her upon their departure and she was not one to let down a girl gang, but it didn’t matter. He called her princess now. Clarke didn’t hate it.

The eleventh time Bellamy came into Dropship was for his sister Octavia’s birthday. After a month of unsuccessful attempts to figure out the recipe, Octavia had caved and started her party at dropship. A battalion of them arrived at eight, just as Clarke was starting her shift. Every last one of them ordered an Arkangel at Octavia’s insistence, and Bellamy teased that he would finally learn the recipe because she had a dozen to make at once. Clarke, however, had been tipped off by Miller earlier in the week when he came to moon over Monty and she had a pre-made pitcher waiting in the fridge. She poured them out and set each aflame with precision and a smirk, much to Bellamy’s chagrin.

* * *

The twelfth time Bellamy ordered an Arkangel at Dropship was a week after Octavia’s birthday party, and he was all alone. Clarke refilled his glass periodically, and he nursed a few all night, hanging out at the end of the bar as the room bustled around him. When the noise finally dimmed later in the evening, she wandered over to his spot, wiping up the full coffee-tini that had been spilled earlier. It was another one of Jasper’s inventions, though not quite as popular as his triumph the Arkangel.

“How’s your night?” she asked, rubbing a stubborn spot with the rag.

“Just peachy,” he grumbled, swirling his glass.

“That didn’t sound nearly convincing,” Clarke nudged.

“My boss is going to get crucified for doing the right thing.”

“Oh really,” she leaned forward. “What is the right thing?”

“He championed this higher education bill and some crazy assholes just put out this ad today that’s running in every district,” Bellamy told her, running a hand through his curly hair.

“Isn’t that what always happens?” she pointed out, pouring two tequila shots for a grown man in a bro tank and returning to Bellamy.

He sighed. “This is different. He did this because of me.”

“Why?”

“I met Kane when I was just out of high school. I’d gotten into Georgetown for political science, but I couldn’t afford to go. So Kane gave me a job working as a low-level aide for the three years I was in undergrad and helped me get my clearance as soon as I graduated. I’ve been working for him ever since.”

“Oh.” It was all Clarke could say. She couldn’t imagine doing so much.

“And I have a good job, you know? But I still had to take out a lot of loans to go to school, and it’s not adding up. Between my degree and Octavia’s in physical therapy, it’s a lot. So Kane got it. It was all I could do to keep him from name-checking me in the proposal speech for the bill. He just—“

“—wants to help,” Clarke finished, and for the first time in a bit, Bellamy looked up into her eyes and smiled. It was a wry smile, but it counted.

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “He’s trying.”

* * *

If asked later how a conversation about student loan debt turned into him pressing her against a wall, Clarke would glibly reply that he was feeling crushed, so she let him crush her. In all honesty, she had no idea. But if she knew one thing, standing in the alley next to Dropship after closing with Bellamy’s arms around her waist and mouth on her neck, it was that she never wanted him to stop.

Later that night as they lay with Bellamy stroking her face, he broke the quiet contentment.

“Does this mean you’ll tell me the recipe now?” he joked, and Clarke grinned.

“Absolutely not. I signed a pact,” she informed him mock-seriously.

“Oh yes. Of course,” he nodded sagely, and proceeded to kiss every inch of her body while naming possible ingredients. Clarke laughed and moaned in equal measure, but never gave up a single ingredient.

The next morning she awoke in a relatively unfamiliar apartment to the smell of fresh waffles and a shirtless Bellamy presiding over the kitchen. Clarke felt like she was living the meet-cute dream, and for once in her life she wasn’t going to fight it.

When she arrived at Dropship later that day, Monty was counting inventory and Raven was buffing glasses suggestively. What made it suggestive, Clarke couldn’t specify, but it definitely was.

“Well if it isn’t little Miss ‘I don’t sleep with regulars, Raven, that’s weird’,” Raven greeted.

“Thank you so kindly,” Clarke rolled her eyes.

“So how was your night?” she asked, shimmying her shoulders.

“Monty’s been sleeping with Miller for a week, why don’t you bother him?”

“Hey! Don’t get me involved!” Monty exclaimed, throwing a pencil at the two.

“We will get to Monty’s boy toy in a moment. We’re talking about you now,” Raven answered.

“I slept over, he made me waffles. What do you want from me?”

“My _Battlestar Galactica_ Season 3 DVD set that you borrowed six months ago and have never returned. Barring that, some kind of recognition that I totally called this a month ago.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “You did not.”

“I’m just saying,” Raven shrugged, “ I want a shoutout at your wedding reception.”

Clarke threw her rag at Raven, who ducked and started cackling.

* * *

When Octavia officially met Clarke, she squealed and grabbed Clarke so tightly she thought she might suffocate. Octavia insisted that she join them for movie night the next weekend. Movie night turned out to be margarita and Netflix night at the Blake apartment with the whole gang, throwing Cheetos at the screen and dancing along to the soundtrack.

When Clarke met Senator Kane, it was at the Senate holiday party. Clarke bought a very expensive fancy gown to wear and had cinched her hosiery within an inch of her life, something Bellamy whispered promises about undoing later through the entire evening. Kane was warm and kind, with the standard politician polish, repeating over and over how much Bellamy talked about her in the office. It made Clarke and Bellamy blush in equal measure. Later he spun her around the dance floor with surprising ease, and Bellamy admitted he had taken ballroom classes with Octavia in middle school.

When Bellamy met her mother, Abby Griffin raised her eyebrows imperceptibly and graciously shook his hand. She didn’t have to say anything for Clarke to interpret the glance for what it was, genuine surprise that after decades of shirking cotillions and family social events, Clarke had found herself an accomplished man in politics. A Deputy Chief of Staff, but he was handsome and opinionated. Clarke could see the wheels turning in her head. Clarke cautioned him later that night when they were curled up in their pjs of her mother’s political ambitions for him and he just cackled, loudly and at length.

When Bellamy met Wells, the big brother bravado lasted all of twenty minutes before the two became friends. Clarke rolled her eyes at the whole thing, the two of them conferring quietly at the other end of the booth. Wells had grown up in the political machine as the Governor’s son, and between that and Bellamy’s experience with DC politics, Clarke’s men were two peas in a pod instantly. Wells texted Bellamy more than she did.

Their social groups merged until their Venn Diagram was just a circle. The whole gang was invited to movie nights at Clarke and Bellamy’s after Clarke moved in, and they all turned up at Dropship on a Tuesday night for Jasper and Maya’s engagement party. At Bellamy’s insistence, Clarke submitted some of her sketches to a comic company, and now had her first graphic novel being published in a couple months. With the standard shuffle of jobs, Bellamy had been promoted to Senator Kane’s Chief of Staff, and spent almost every waking hour on the trail with Kane. Primaries were coming up and Kane was up for reelection. His numbers were good, but that didn’t mean Bellamy was going to take a foot off the gas. Clarke teased him that he loved Kane more than her, something he didn’t dispute to tease her in return. He spent nearly every moment of the day besides those times telling her he loved her, so she forgave him.

* * *

It was Friday and they were slammed. Raven blamed spring break and Murphy blamed the primaries. Clarke took issue with both, but now was not the time to quibble. Harper blamed the environmental convention taking place down the street, as she maintained eco-people “partied wild”. Whatever it was, Clarke had not a moment of downtime.

“Clarke!” Bellamy called, and she turned to see his face in the swirl of bodies to her left. He pointed to himself and Miller next to him, before fading back into the mass.

“Two Arkangels. Got it,” she hollered back, and set to making the drinks.

In her defense, they were busy. A combination of being short on time and believing that honestly no one would be paying attention let her take a chance and make the damn-complicated, at this point slightly-overrated-in-Clarke’s-opinion cocktail without turning around. She mixed it right at her workstation, quickly and efficiently before pouring them in glasses and setting them on fire on the bartop. There was an audible “ooooh” from nearby customers, and Clarke sighed. Like the Fajita Principle of Mexican restaurants, lighting the two cocktails would only entice the rest of the patrons at the bar, and she would be making Arkangels all night. She knew this in her bones.

“I suppose you’ll have to kill me now that I know the recipe.”

Clarke looked up and saw Bellamy standing right in front of her, having watched her the whole time. _That sneaky bastard._

“Get in line, I’ve got a hit list a mile long,” she retorted.

“I told you I’d catch you one time,” he grinned.

“You play the long game, I’ll give you that,” Clarke told him. “Ten months. That’s a long time to wait for me to let you see a cocktail recipe.”

“I’m patient.”

“You want me to close you out? I’m not done for another hour—“

“Hell no, Griffin, you are not leaving me here to the masses. You are staying late!” Raven called from far to her left, slinging martinis and manhattans with the grace of an experienced butcher. Her arm movements were precise, not a thing out of place, and she was as dangerous with a soda sprayer as a knife.

"--okay in several hours,” Clarke amended, smiling.

“Close me out,” Bellamy answered, and she handed him the receipt book, moving on to a pair of girls in need of mojitos.

“You’d better leave a good tip,” Clarke teased. “I’ll have you know I deliver impeccable service.”

“Believe me, I did,” he assured her, and after giving the girls their mojitos, she returned to the book, opening it. For the first time in the entire evening, she stopped in her tracks.

Inside the book was a diamond ring. It was small and simple, like Clarke had always insisted she liked. When Bellamy teased her about getting some massive rock like Kim Kardashian’s or something (Clarke always mocked his knowledge of E! programming), she insisted that the only way she would wear a big ring was if she was a hoity-toity senator’s wife. And she was not.

“Oh my god,” she whispered.

“Clarke—“ Bellamy started, and clamored over the bartop and into the bartender thoroughfare.

“That’s a health code violation,” she told him absently.

“Clarke,” he tried again, taking hold of her hands and kneeling on the sticky and frankly unsanitary traction mats of the floor. “I can’t believe I had to wait so long to find you. But I’m glad I did. Because I wouldn’t be anywhere near the man I am today without you. You inspire me to be better, remind me not to take myself too seriously, and show me that good things come to those who wait.”

By now Clarke was crying, her brain short-circuiting as the entire bar careened to a standstill.

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this in front of all these people,” she stuttered, squeezing his hand and shaking only a little.

“Now I have waited a long time, and tonight it finally happened. You showed me the secret recipe to make the Arkangel, champion cocktail of Dropship and the first thing we ever argued about. I figure since I already know all of your secrets, I might as well keep you around to see if you’ve got any more.”

“Asshole,” she choked, tears still coming down her face.

“Clarke, will you please marry me?” His face was so earnest when he asked. For all the bravado about the cocktail and grand gesturing about patience and being better, the whole room fell away, and it was just his face. The face she knew almost better than her own. She could trace his freckles with her eyes closed, stroked the deep ridges of his cheeks when he smiled. His arms wrapped around her every night when they slept, and two weeks ago when he had stayed overnight in Richmond for the campaign she only slept three hours. This was the one she needed, the one she would keep.

“Yeah—yes,” she stumbled, and the room erupted into cheers. Bellamy stood and picked her up wrapping her arms around her and pulling her in for a deep kiss, almost in a dip.

“You sure you want to marry a political fuckboi? I hear they’re the worst,” he told her, murmured through her hair.

“I believe they prefer the term political fuck- _man_ ,” Clarke grinned, and Bellamy started laughing. A big laugh that vibrated through his chest and into her own. The deep, gravelling laugh of an ecstatic man. And Clarke was never letting go.


End file.
